163 • REPORT— 1864. 



eionate war, which haa a tragic interest, has shown that though the British race 

 has undergone changes, such as Sir Charles Lyell pointed out, it has lost none of 

 its valour, none of its endurance and none of its military genius in America since 

 the days of Washington. It is rather exposed to the reproach Hume addressed to 

 England, of lighting on uselessly in stubborn anger, when the object of the war is 

 attained, or is unattainable, than to that of imitating the new fashion set by the 

 Emperor of the French in the Crimea and Lombardy. 



As the war proclaims the power of two nations, Kennedy's ample statistics fill 

 us with astonishment at their achievments in all the arts of life ; and if Frederick 

 in Prussia, and Peter in Kussia, are justly, for founding two great powers, called 

 Great, that title cannot be withheld trom'the nations sprung from the men whom 

 England sent over the waves of the Atlantic. 



In Bath Abbey, I am reminded, lie quietly the ashes of Malthus, one of the 

 fathers of statistics, and one of the foimders of this Section of the Association at 

 Cambridge. In his celebrated work he deduced from all the information then ex- 

 tant respecting the populations of the earth, the well-known law that population 

 increases in geometrical progression. The first pliilosophic naturalist of his age 

 assures us that this law rules in every species of plant and animal ; and that he 

 derived from Malthus the conception of the struggle for existence, which, with 

 the tendency to variations of form and natural selection always operating in favour 

 of the best, through the millions of ages which our President unrolled before us 

 last night, wi-ought those miracles of organization which we now regard with 

 wonder and awe. 



Malthus did not, however, sufficiently advert to one great characteristic of man, 

 which distinguishes him from all his fellow creatures. The lion and the eagle prey 

 iipon the fawn and the lamb, but do not breed them ; and even the busy bee only 

 gathers honey from flowers existing. Man, by his industry, creates flowers, fruit, 

 grain, and all products ; his science places the forces of nature in his hands ; his 

 powers of transport give him the use of the lands of all climates ; and hence subsis- 

 tence has increased during the present century in a more rapid geometrical progres- 

 sion than the numbers of the people in England. Hence her numerous cities, her full 

 ports and her cultivated fields ; hence the States of America, hence Canada and its 

 sister provinces, hence the colony of the Cape, Australasia, and our Indian Empire. 

 If, like the power of Imperial Rome, whose ruined temples lie imder our feet in the 

 streets of Bath, England should ever decline and pass away, she will not have 

 existed in vain ; she will leave eternal traces of her life in the life of mankind ; and 

 our dry fossil figures, read by the Macaulay of a later age, will reveal the works 

 in America, in Australia, and India of a great nation. But hitherto no signs of 

 decay are visible; our population is to-day in its youth; it has proportionably more 

 young men in it than any other people in Europe ; who in no respect, take them 

 in the ranks of the Volunteers or in the Sections of the British Association, need 

 fear a comparison with their contemporaries. The English race — the greatest of 

 the nationalities — amidst all the coalescing nations, yields all the signs of being able 

 to hold her own for ages to come. Yes — 



" Thou shalt be the miglity one yet ! 

 Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated, 

 Thine the myriad-rdiling ocean, light and shadow iUimitable, 

 Thine the lands of lasting summer, many blossoming Paradises, 

 Thine the North, thine the South, and thine the battle-thunder of God"*. 



Let us, gentlemen, Work hard in that humble field allotted to us ; and by doing 

 our duty endeavour to make the statistics of our day worthy of the country in 

 which we live. Above all, let us never forget at our meetings how much we are 

 indebted to the men no more among us, who have made us heirs of their labours, 

 and to whom we are bound by natural piety. Among those names this year to be 

 especially remembered is that of Sir Alexander Tulloch, K.C.B. He was a Fellow 

 of the Statistical Society, to whose ' Journal ' he contributed valuable papers ; with 

 Henry Marshall and Dr. Balfour he laboured successfully in army statistics ; he 

 organized the pensioners ; his ability in administration induced the Government 



* Tennyson. 



